Playing Chess on a Golf Course

By

John Paul Newport

Updated July 18, 2012 8:59 a.m. ET

Lytham St. Annes, England

ENLARGE

The bunker-laden ninth hole at Royal Lytham & St. Annes, the British Open site.
Associated Press

British Open courses have never been pretty, at least in the eyes of Americans watching on television. U.S. viewers are spoiled by the green, manicured fairways of Augusta National and the like, as environmentally troublesome as such courses can be.

Links courses, by contrast, tilt toward the brown and yellow hues of the spectrum. Royal Lytham & St. Annes, the site of this week's British Open, doesn't even have the ocean as a backdrop. It lies a mile inland, separated from the Irish Sea, if not from the wind.

The Royal Lytham course where the U.K. golf open is being played, has been deemed unplayable by some of the leading player after record rainfall this spring and summer. WSJ's John Paul Newport reports. Photo: Getty Images

Thanks to record rainfall this spring and summer, however, Royal Lytham is lush, but not in a good way as far as players are concerned. Its rough, usually wispy this time of year, is bursting with heather, bramble and high, tussocky fescues. Tiger Woods has called it "almost unplayable." "I've never seen rough this high or thick or dense," he said. You could lose a child in the thicker patches.

I spotted crews Sunday frantically pulling up handful after handful of the thickest stuff near the greens. Without such thinning, balls bounding barely over a green might never be found less than 30 feet from a hole, or if found rendered unplayable, forcing a drop and a penalty stroke.

Even under normal circumstances, Lytham is one of the toughest and tightest British Open courses. Tournaments here are basically chess matches between the players and the bunkers—206 of them, deep and steep-faced and cleverly scattered in all of the places balls most like to roll. Despite the rains, the sand-based fairways have not slowed down much at all.

"Accuracy is going to be the key this week," said defending champion Darren Clarke of Northern Ireland on Monday. "It's not really length off the tee; it's keeping it on the fairways and keeping it out of those bunkers."

Woods, in winning the 2006 British Open 25 miles south at Royal Liverpool, used his driver only once all week. He relied instead on irons off the tee to avoid the bunkers. The winner this week may go with a similar strategy.

"Even if you've got 220 yards left to the green for your second shot, it's better than having to chip it sideways or backwards out of the bunkers," Clarke said. "They are very, very strategically placed, so you've got to be careful with them."

That will be a challenge for players like Dustin Johnson and Bubba Watson, whose games are predicated on colossal length. "It's something I've never done," Watson said Monday about threading short layups off the tee. "I'm going to have to really work on that. It's a different mind-set, a different game plan." He said he expects to hit driver only sparingly.

Woods is the favorite, understandably. As a three-time British Open champion, he clearly knows how it works. He also has three wins on Tour this year, more than anyone else, and ball-striking right now is the strength of his game. A year ago Woods ranked near the bottom in driving accuracy. This year he is 46th in that category, fifth in total driving (a combination of accuracy and distance) and 11th in greens in regulation.

The sentimental favorite, however, is Lee Westwood of England. He is also second in the minds of the bookmakers. The 39-year-old, ranked No. 3 in the world, has never won a major and would love to become the first Englishman to win the Open in England since Tony Jacklin won here in 1969.

Between Westwood and world No. 1 Luke Donald—also from England and also without a major—Jacklin thinks Westwood has the better shot. "He's a good driver of the ball. His ball striking is fantastic. Luke is a bit—if you look at his stats, his driver is not the straightest club," he said. "This should suit Lee down to the ground, both the conditions of the golf course and the way he's playing. But you never know. It's a nerve-racking thing."

But the clock is ticking for Westwood, which only adds to the pressure. Perhaps he can find inspiration in Clarke's win last year at Royal St. George's, his first major at age 42.

Any number of other players could pull out a victory, of course. Padraig Harrington, who won two British Opens and a PGA Championship in 2007 and 2008 but was then given up for dead by many, seems to have found his form again. He finished eighth at the Masters, fourth at the U.S. Open and seventh recently at the Irish Open on a links course.

The slumping Rory McIlroy, world No. 4, claims to be newly focused. Phil Mickelson, enduring a so-so season despite winning at Pebble Beach, surprised everyone last week with mid-tournament rounds of 64 and 65 at the Scottish Open before fading in the final round to tie for 16th.

More rain, perhaps heavy, is expected Tuesday night and Wednesday, but the forecast for the rest of the week is for decent if not flawless weather.

As at the Olympic Club during the U.S. Open last month, the first six holes at Lytham are brutal. A good start, or at least not a disastrous one, is essential.

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